Shilling for Amazon
About a month or so ago I bought an Amazon Kindle. If you don’t know what that is, click the link, read the text, sell some blood, and order one. Just be prepared to wait. And wait. It seems Amazon’s salesforce is a little better skilled than their production force.
Anyway, I bought this thing mainly because I really like books, but the recent move has made me really hate carrying books. And now I can have a little over a thousand books that will fit in my messenger bag.
I already told my family not to buy me anymore books, unless they’re comics, because I don’t want them. (The Kindle doesn’t really play nice with lots of images, and the screen is the size of a mass-market paperback, which is no good for comics.) That got me thinking about the nature of text.
My mother also has a profound love for books, but she takes certain things too literally. She is very attached to the materiallity of books. To her, once a book is printed and bound it is something approaching a sacred relic. I once said, and often still say, that all Reader’s Digest Condensed Books should be burned. My mother freaks out every time she hears that, and starts calling me a Nazi. It’s difficult to reason with people that think you’re some kind of animal. But I take the Ray Bradbury stance on books; it’s the words inside that make them special, not the book itself. And Condensed Books destroy the words inside.
Now, I have to say I will probably end up buying more physical books than I let on. I’m a sucker for weird publishing formats. One of my favorite books is on hair, and is covered in fake fur. And just last week I almost bought a book on golf, a “sport” I have no interest in, just because it had a fake grass dust jacket. It’s like they see me coming.
On the bright side I haven’t given all of my money to Amazon. I’m currently working my way through downloading the library at Feedbooks. And the Baen Free library has some cool stuff too. As of yet the only thing I’ve bought for my Kindle is a newpaper subscription and the Bible. Being an Atheist I find it important to have a Bible with me at all times. You know, just in case. Kind of like the Krishna belief that if you are saying one of the names of god when you die it gets you bonus points with the big guy.
So, in the next couple years when the Kindle drops in price from the astronomical to the simply absurd, I heartily recommend it. And then you can finally read all of the Wizard of Oz stories and Alice in Wonderland and Art of War and…
